In recent years, consumers have grown increasingly aware that the explosion of palm oil plantations to supply food companies making everything from Pop-Tarts to ramen noodles has taken a heavy toll on the environment.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, where most of the world's palm oil is produced, environmental groups have been putting pressure on suppliers who convert rainforests into plantations.
Now it seems palm oil production in Africa is picking up, too. And the new farms there are threatening great ape populations in West and Central Africa, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
"Africa seems to be the new frontier," says Serge Wich, a primate biologist at Liverpool John Moores University and the lead author of the report. Sixty percent of African oil palm concessions — or land that's been set aside for the development of oil plantations — overlap with the ape habitats.
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